The individualization or personalization of symbolic articles, such as pieces of jewelry, and decorative articles and mementos, accords with a basic human need. Many people want to stand out from the mass by possessing an individual unique and personal decorative item or to express the importance of a relation or bond with another person or living thing. A first step toward a personalized decorative item is the mechanical machining, customary for a long time, of a standard decorative item, for example by means of engraving. In this case, for example, the names of the marriage partners and the wedding date are engraved into wedding rings. However, the reference to the married person remains purely ideal and, de facto, immaterial. The decorative items produced in this way therefore lack the direct material or substantive relation to the desired person.
Even thousands of years ago, this need led in many cultures to the development of decorative items in which, for example, a lock of hair of a certain person was kept in a suitable reception space of the decorative item. A multiplicity of such decorative items are known from the sacred sphere for the safekeeping of relics. However, the keeping of human body parts, such as bones or teeth, has nowadays become to some extent taboo in Western cultures and has a somewhat morbid flavor to it. It is therefore desirable to have alternatives.
Japanese patent application JP 2002085116 discloses decorative items in which human hairs are embedded by means of resins into an orifice provided for this purpose. In the production of such decorative items, although the relation to the desired person is achieved in material terms, nevertheless the artist's or goldsmith's creative freedom is greatly restricted, since he must necessarily provide a sufficiently large reception space for the resin/hair mixture. Moreover, the connection between the actual decorative item and the resin/hair mixture introduced can be released by simple means, and therefore the close relationship with the decorative item is absent.
Patent application US 2002/0025392 describes a method for the production of mementos from glass with cremated human or animal remains. The ash is intermixed with an additive which assists the production of glass and is processed into a powder. The memento is subsequently produced from glass. In production terms, the ash constitutes an undesirable impurity in the glass. This gives the consumer the feeling that the glass and therefore the memento are not refined, but are in some way contaminated by the ash, thus, again, making it difficult for these mementos to be accepted on the market.
Patent application WO 03/008084 describes a method for the production of artificial precious stones, in which carbon of human or animal origin is used. The carbon is generated as a result of the cremation of human or animal remains. The ash is filtered, purified by means of a halogen purification stage and subsequently graphitized. From the graphite thus obtained, the precious stones are subsequently produced by means of known sublimation techniques.
A further method for the production of personalized artificial precious stones or diamonds is disclosed in WO 2006/082259. Part of the carbon required is obtained by the carbonization of keratin of human or animal origin, for example a lock of hair. One disadvantage of these precious stones is their high price which is caused primarily by the extremely complicated production process. The production of artificial personalized precious stones is complicated, and it requires a large amount of initial material, complicated purification processes and complex production devices. Moreover, these precious stones cannot be used universally in decorative items for structural reasons.
A method for the production of carbon-enriched material by means of the carbonization of an initial material which at least partially contains human or animal hair is known from German laid-open publication DE 1255629.
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,382,111 B1 describes a further method for the production of mementos from incineration residues of cremation (for example, bones or ash of cremated body parts of human or animal origin). It becomes clearly apparent from the description and patent claim 1 that the incineration residues are calcined in an essential method step, that is to say the organic constituents and the carbon are largely removed. In one exemplary embodiment, it is proposed to add an ash calcined in this way to a metal melt. Since the ash and the metal do not mix, the ash floats on the metal as a result of its lower density and, during the subsequent cooling of the metal, settles on the surface of the final product. After cooling, the final product is further processed mechanically into a metal sheet, the sides provided with ash are laid together, and the ash is at least partially included in the metal material by means of pressing. In a further exemplary embodiment, U.S. Pat. No. 6,382,111B1 describes the production of a mixture of copper powder and a finely ground calcined bone ash with the addition of PVA. The mixture is cold-pressed and subsequently melted. After cooling, the copper together with the melted-in ash can be polished. Such personalized decorative items made from metal, in which the ash is bound mechanically into the metal, have a multiplicity of disadvantages: the durability or resistance of the material properties is restricted, since the ash is bound to the surface or inside the decorative item solely by means of mechanical forces. Individual shaping during processing in the cold state is restricted, and processing in the heated state or by means of molten metal is not possible, since the ash otherwise is separated from the metal again and floats up.
The object of the present invention, therefore, is to make available a method for the individualization of a metallic material, which method does not have the disadvantages listed above.